Home and personal care compositions include products such as hair shampoos, hair conditioners, hair styling products, shower gels, fabric washing powders and liquids, fabric softeners, laundry dryer aids, easy-iron sprays, deodorant sticks, waxes and polishes (such as car and furniture waxes), cleaning sprays, abrasive cleaners, carpet cleaners, makeup, lipstick, eye shadow, skin creams, massage oils, lotions, ointments, sunscreens, shaving products, depilatory products, hair colorants, toothpastes, paints, varnishes and lacquers (such as brickwork sealants). Frequently, there is a need for hydrophobic oils waxes or gums to be present in such products in order to provide desirable attributes to the product such as feel on the skin, smooth hair, soft fabric feel, water repellency, dirt repellency, ease of spread, shine.
Silicone-based hydrophobic oils, waxes and gums are often used in such home and personal care compositions. Silicone-based hydrophobic oils can have advantages over organic oils for lubrication and shine.
In spite of these advantages, silicone materials tend to be incorporated into products at relatively low levels. This may be because these ingredients are generally expensive compared to other components, so increase the cost of products. Also, levels of incorporation are limited by the mutual compatibility of silicones with the other components, which can lead to instability and separation of the silicone into a separate layer on storage of the product. This is undesirable as it looks unattractive to the consumer and also because it can lead to uneven dosing of the components. Also, high levels of silicones in products can lead to an undesirable build-up of silicones on the hair, leading to some consumers feeling that the hair is dirty or greasy
Special emulsifiers may also be needed to disperse silicone hydrophobes in products.
In order to prepare stable products with a balance of attributes that are attractive to the consumer, the formulation developer is faced with the challenge of ensuring the compatibility of the hydrophobic material with the other ingredients in the composition. There is also the problem of achieving the desired effects with relatively low levels of silicone in the composition.
In particular, for compositions which are aimed at improving the combability and smoothness of wet and/or of dry hair there is a need for silicones which provide high levels of lubricity when present at low levels in compositions. This is also the case for fabric softening products and other products where the role of the silicone hydrophobe is to provide lubrication.
Hence there is a need for alternative silicones to complement the current range of available silicone-based hydrophobes. Moreover there is also a need for silicones which can provide higher levels of lubricity than current materials when used in home and personal care compositions.
The conventional ingredients in home and personal care compositions are generally organic in nature, by which is meant based on carbon chemistry. The essential incompatibility between silicone and organic molecules has led to the development of silicone polymeric materials with organic substituent groups, with the expectation that such silicone polymers will be more compatible with other ingredients in products (such as for making stable emulsions) and with the organic substrates upon which the product is used (such as hair and skin and fabrics).
EP 0 582 152 discloses a graft copolymer or alternating block copolymer linked by a sulfide linkage.
Surprisingly, it has now been found that new hydrophobic polymeric silicones, where the silicone backbone of the polymer is furnished with silicone substituent groups in order to form comb or rake shaped molecules, are suitable for use in home and personal care products as hydrophobic oils, waxes and gums. It has also been found that the new hydrophobic polymeric silicones can be more effective than known silicones as lubricants. This is particularly the case for home and personal care compositions, and more particularly in hair conditioning compositions.